Black and grey tattoo of a winged key with small stars and the script words It's real for us, on the ankle above a sandal strap.

Winged key and script on an ankle

Lettering · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A winged key sits at the centre of the design, with a triangle and circle motif on the bow and small star shapes around it. Below, the words It's real for us are written in handwritten script. The linework is dark and fairly bold, with little visible shading, and the tattoo is shown against a wooden deck with a sandal strap across the ankle.

Lettering Ankle Key Wing Star Triangle Circle Script Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

They say the key came up in the bottom seam of Hollin Pit the spring after the flood, lying on a shelf of coal as if someone had set it down for later. Nobody in the village could say who had lost it, for no one had worked that far down since the old men were boys. Ada Marr carried it home in her apron pocket because the lamp-man said it was too fine a thing to leave for the water.

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It had wings of tin folded back along the shank, a bow cut in the shape of a triangle with a circle set inside, and three small stars scratched near the bit. Her brother Tom laughed at the wings and said keys did not fly. Ada said the wings were for the door, not the key, and that the door stood up on Crow Fell where the old workings ran into the hill.

They walked up in the thaw with a candle and a heel of bread. At the top, where the rock split like a bad tooth, there was an iron door no higher than a child, and the key turned in it with a sound like a bird clearing its throat. Behind it was only dark and the smell of rain on warm stone, and Tom, who had been braver all day than he had any right to be, wanted to turn back.

Ada chalked the words on the door beside the lock, the way their gran had taught them to mark a safe road: It's real for us. The wind came through the gap and bent the flame flat, and when it straightened the door was gone and the valley lay open below them, lit gold, with the pit wheel turning slow. They came down at supper with the candle burned to a stub. Their mother asked where they had been, and Ada said only up. Tom, who had never once in his life agreed with her, said it was real for us, and nobody at the table asked him what he meant.